God I love the dunning-kruger view of Germany as the last bastion of internet liberty, it's utterly wrong - Germany has so many laws restricting online speech that you (and the service hosting your content) can be sued just for mentioning someone by name in a disparaging context, nothing like the CDA 230 protections exists there in the first place.
Doesn't it seem odd to anyone that despite having some of the best hackers in the world come from it Germany has zero world-scale content platforms ?
Germany strongly respects individual privacy (perhaps because many Germans remember the Gestapo) but they don't have the same notions of free speech rights that Americans do.
It's not just the privacy, it also recognizes the right to protect one's reputation and has a much broader construction of defamation and libel than the US (although still not as broad as the UK), but the point is that there are no special liability protections for online services except maybe in the name of journalism and general public interest, also no DMCA - a copyright violation is a copyright violation and if your users commit it you're liable.
Citation needed. Germany is a mess on that topic. On the one hand, we have ridiculous things like "police stations can't have cameras monitoring the sidewalk next to them because of privacy concerns", on the other hand we're obligated by law to inform the government when we move (with heavy fines if you do not comply immediately), and the data will be shared with our state media so they can collect their its-not-a-tax-media-tax, and political parties so they can send you ads (at least you can reject this, but it's opt-out, not opt-in).
As with many things in Germany, many things about privacy are missing the forest for the trees. We'll enforce with furious diligence things that are irrelevant, while you can't buy SIM cards anonymously and they're pushing for laws that might outlaw VPN services, there are regular pushes for removing "anonymity" from the internet etc.
Don't forget the copyright infringement honeypots whose operators have a streamlined access to ISPs to obtain identities of the alleged infringers.
Also the legal obligation to have every website specify the legal street address of the entity behind it as well as the full name of the "managing director" in charge.
I feel this is a big difference between the US and Europe in many cases with the difference being the US system is scared to actually face the questions. It's all conventions and traditions that has become culture and unchangeable, with some arcane bench of judges making modern interpretations on 1700's thoughts, sometimes for the better, sometimes separate but equal. Ridiculous to trust an institution like that to make progress in a society.
This leading to privacy by mostly convention, but then everyone builds systems to circumvent it in inefficient ways. I.e. SSN and similar.
Instead of simply acknowledging that the government is going to get that information no matter what, and it is a requirement to actually govern a modern society. Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses.
> Ridiculous to trust an institution like that to make progress in a society.
Imho "making progress" is not the task of any court. Their job is to apply the laws to cases; want to make progress towards some goal? Change the laws, change the constitution.
> Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses.
Which, of course, isn't happening. We have accepted (as if anybody ever asked us) that it's required to govern a "modern society", and now we have the police tapping whatever info source they can get away with. The courts will, in some cases at least, rule that they may not (but we don't have "fruit of the poisonous tree", so if they illegally search your house, they may still use whatever they find against you), but they're normalizing the overreach.
And it's not a political-side-thing either. The conservatives want to use it to fight islamic terrorists and the last three remaining communist revolutionaries, the progressives want to use it to fight racism, sexism and conservatives. Our main stream media (which is much more bundled up than in the US or UK) will generally urge for respecting privacy, but will also generally falter in any crisis and get in line. There are very few private NGOs that are holding the state's feet to the fire.
Setting things up so you can "govern a modern society" efficiently isn't all good. I'd take an inefficient administration that keeps its nose out of my business over an efficient administration any day.
Yes. But he threatens to remove protections of tech companies from liability if users post defamatory messages on their platforms, which can lead to more moderation.
More to the point - when the only options for a platform hosting any user provided content are to shut down to avoid liability or not moderate anything, platforms choosing the latter will become overwhelmed with extremist and right-wing speech, pushing the Overton window towards the cultural normalization of alt-right and white supremacist ideology.
Apologies, but this sounds like it came straight from underneath a tin-foil hat.
And to be honest, racism and <insert-color> supermacy are the most primitive & superficial form of collectivism and thus disgusting, but...
If the idiots on left are going for affirmative action, which is basically discrimination based on superficial qualities such as gender, race & religion, why the idiots on the right should not be allowed to do the same?
It may not be the goal of Donald Trump specifically - I think he's just having a bit of a hissy fit TBH. But I absolutely do think it's the goal of many self-described "free speech" advocates on the internet, and Trump's worldview seems to be informed by their zeitgeist, so he's serving their purposes.
It's pretty obvious that people who have their own speech being suppressed would be advocating for freedom of speech. That's almost tautological, and not a particularly interesting argument.
They're not advocating for freedom of speech, they're advocating for the tolerance of racist speech under a politically correct banner. Most of them wouldn't bat an eye at the suppression of speech they disagree with, which is evident in how often their attempts at general argument devolve into rants against "the left", SJWs, feminists, etc.
As I said, it doesn't really matter, if they defend a good argument for the wrong reasons.
It's quite possible that some people who want free speech now might be against free speech for others, but that's hardly an argument against having free speech in the first place.
It's an interesting thought experiment: under free speech you should be free to advocate for a restriction of free speech.
If most places ban a certain type of content, it's likely that you will find more of that content in the few places where it's allowed.
I'm questioning the idea that if all platforms were to be less restrictive, that particular type of content would become "overwhelming".
Some communities are more active online than others but generally I would expect the distribution of opinions expressed online to reflect the actual distribution of opinions actually held by the population.
>I would expect the distribution of opinions expressed online to reflect the actual distribution of opinions actually held by the population.
You're assuming most people are tolerant of racist and bigoted content and don't mind seeing a constant stream of it, but when the Nazis show up, their discourse tends to drive everyone else away if they aren't banned. That's why they tend to take over communities where, in theory all sorts of opinions are welcome.
It might be true on some platforms like Facebook, where your network tends to be made up of family and colleagues (so you can't really avoid what your uncle might have to say), but I don't think it's true on social media websites like reddit or twitter, where you can choose which content you follow (subreddit, following certain users, etc.)
Just be prepared to throw out any tweet that comes close to Holocaust denial or uses Nazi symbols. Well, that's actually not so bad IMO but the American style "free speech" advocates would be foaming.
What does "relocate" include? I mean, Twitter's infrastructure is not tight to the US and will already be spread all over the globe. So, only the address of the HQ?
> “Here you are free to criticize the government as well as to fight fake news. We have a great startup and tech ecosystem, your company would be a perfect fit and I will open any doors for you!”
As if that's not the case in the US? Trump's threats don't hold any water and, if we're being honest, our legal restrictions on speech are less stringent than Germany's.
The US's restrictions on speech are indeed less stringent than in Germany.
However representatives could make a law that says communication platforms deemed to be significant parts of political communication need to not control the conversation.
The mood is going entirely in the other direction in Europe though, i.e. they want platforms to police speech even more. That's certainly true in Germany, also in France, and I'm sure other European countries.
There is no equivalent to the US when it comes to freedom of speech.
There is a natural ebb and flow to societies and civilizations. Things were happening in Athens, Miletos, Alexandria, Baghdad - the intellectual centers of gravity changed over time as rulers had various levels of enlightenment, religious freedom varied etc.
It is impossible to run anything like Twitter in Germany without being sued into oblivion for defamation etc and get struck with criminal charges for something a user posted. Germanys equivalent of cease and desist letters (Abmahnungen) make running a big site with user generated content very unattractive.
Or accidentally trigger a three-strike rule or infringe some odd sentence in the 300k pages of regulations that concern your business... Europe is not going to have a big tech company (or even mid-sized for that matter) until this legal approach changes in an extreme way.
Yeah, massive taxes on all fronts (employment, corporate & VAT) accompanied by insane beuracracy, GDPR and tons of other pointless regulations... My favourite would be "the right to be forgotten", which is probably 20x more outrageous than Trump's current tantrum.
Surely Twitter would be better off in Germany, that's why today's Europe's literally full of thriving tech giants :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." [1]
Freedom of Speech does not protect you from the consequences of said free speech.
> Private entities can do what they want.
Private entities can also get sued into oblivion by other private entities that believe they were wronged. Section 230 prevents that in exchange of some conditions and concessions as long as they are followed.
If twitter wants the freedom to do what they want, they will also have to accept the freedom to get sued into oblivion.
Germany is a startup-friendly? In addition to the free speech issues mentioned above, it makes me giggle a bit when I take a look at their 45% tax rate.
On the other hand, Ireland does look like a sweet destination. Since they probably already have an office there (double Dutch sandwitch?), it wouldn't even be hard to do.
Dreams aside, probably no company is stupid enough to abandon a 330M big market that has plenty of cash to spend.
Has there been a thread on HN that discusses the actual EO?
Let's for the sake of discussion ignore that it's some other political figurehead implementing this law, would it be acceptable? Is twitter a news outlet by editing or annotating a persons message and is it correct to say these companies are forming a monopoly/cartel on free speech. Does twitter's size and impact on the general populace mean it needs different rules to operate?
I'm much more interested in the stances and opinions of people regarding the status quo around social media and their function to the people and much less interested in the drama that ensues every time something leaves trump's mouth.
Trump is a smart man. He has trouble handling the coronavirus so the best thing he can do is shift focus.
I think this article adds nothing. In fact, if you take a closer look it just says: 'Trump threatened to close Twitter and Thomas Jarzombek invites Twitter to Berlin.'.
The key and broader issue here is that Twitter has become a global channel for official governmental communication.
As such Twitter should come up with a clear and transparent policy on this (have they?). It's not specific to Trump.
IMHO, tweets by heads of states should not be subjected to any moderation, and perhaps replies should not be allowed.
Now, what someone tweets in one country may be an offence in another country so it is possible that Twitter might still have to make certain tweets by heads of states unavailable in some other countries.
Replies to official tweets don't really serve any purpose apart from creating a buzz or polemic, i.e. to spread in a viral way but rarely for constructive reasons.
Those tweets are unidirectional top down broadcasts in practice but they reach many more people than the official government website and they do it almost instantly.
Leaving aside all the free speech and German laws, does anyone really believe that Germany or any European nation aside from Russia will harbor anyone in the cross-hairs of the current US establishment? Angering the US will potentially leave the door wide open for Uncle Putin for the Rush B(erlin).
No European country lifted a single finger in the defense of Snowden or Assange when they were in the cross-hairs of the US. No one will do it for twitter, especially when they could just let twitter die and move in to fill the void themselves.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] threadDoesn't it seem odd to anyone that despite having some of the best hackers in the world come from it Germany has zero world-scale content platforms ?
Citation needed. Germany is a mess on that topic. On the one hand, we have ridiculous things like "police stations can't have cameras monitoring the sidewalk next to them because of privacy concerns", on the other hand we're obligated by law to inform the government when we move (with heavy fines if you do not comply immediately), and the data will be shared with our state media so they can collect their its-not-a-tax-media-tax, and political parties so they can send you ads (at least you can reject this, but it's opt-out, not opt-in).
As with many things in Germany, many things about privacy are missing the forest for the trees. We'll enforce with furious diligence things that are irrelevant, while you can't buy SIM cards anonymously and they're pushing for laws that might outlaw VPN services, there are regular pushes for removing "anonymity" from the internet etc.
Also the legal obligation to have every website specify the legal street address of the entity behind it as well as the full name of the "managing director" in charge.
This leading to privacy by mostly convention, but then everyone builds systems to circumvent it in inefficient ways. I.e. SSN and similar.
Instead of simply acknowledging that the government is going to get that information no matter what, and it is a requirement to actually govern a modern society. Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses.
Imho "making progress" is not the task of any court. Their job is to apply the laws to cases; want to make progress towards some goal? Change the laws, change the constitution.
> Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses.
Which, of course, isn't happening. We have accepted (as if anybody ever asked us) that it's required to govern a "modern society", and now we have the police tapping whatever info source they can get away with. The courts will, in some cases at least, rule that they may not (but we don't have "fruit of the poisonous tree", so if they illegally search your house, they may still use whatever they find against you), but they're normalizing the overreach.
And it's not a political-side-thing either. The conservatives want to use it to fight islamic terrorists and the last three remaining communist revolutionaries, the progressives want to use it to fight racism, sexism and conservatives. Our main stream media (which is much more bundled up than in the US or UK) will generally urge for respecting privacy, but will also generally falter in any crisis and get in line. There are very few private NGOs that are holding the state's feet to the fire.
Setting things up so you can "govern a modern society" efficiently isn't all good. I'd take an inefficient administration that keeps its nose out of my business over an efficient administration any day.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz
Which is the actual goal.
And to be honest, racism and <insert-color> supermacy are the most primitive & superficial form of collectivism and thus disgusting, but...
If the idiots on left are going for affirmative action, which is basically discrimination based on superficial qualities such as gender, race & religion, why the idiots on the right should not be allowed to do the same?
It's quite possible that some people who want free speech now might be against free speech for others, but that's hardly an argument against having free speech in the first place.
It's an interesting thought experiment: under free speech you should be free to advocate for a restriction of free speech.
I'm questioning the idea that if all platforms were to be less restrictive, that particular type of content would become "overwhelming".
Some communities are more active online than others but generally I would expect the distribution of opinions expressed online to reflect the actual distribution of opinions actually held by the population.
You're assuming most people are tolerant of racist and bigoted content and don't mind seeing a constant stream of it, but when the Nazis show up, their discourse tends to drive everyone else away if they aren't banned. That's why they tend to take over communities where, in theory all sorts of opinions are welcome.
What does "relocate" include? I mean, Twitter's infrastructure is not tight to the US and will already be spread all over the globe. So, only the address of the HQ?
As if that's not the case in the US? Trump's threats don't hold any water and, if we're being honest, our legal restrictions on speech are less stringent than Germany's.
Whether they would hold up in court and whether they chill speech are two separate things. (Just ask anyone who has been hit with a SLAPP case)
However representatives could make a law that says communication platforms deemed to be significant parts of political communication need to not control the conversation.
There is no equivalent to the US when it comes to freedom of speech.
Surely Twitter would be better off in Germany, that's why today's Europe's literally full of thriving tech giants :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." [1]
Private entities can do what they want.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...
> Private entities can do what they want.
Private entities can also get sued into oblivion by other private entities that believe they were wronged. Section 230 prevents that in exchange of some conditions and concessions as long as they are followed.
If twitter wants the freedom to do what they want, they will also have to accept the freedom to get sued into oblivion.
On the other hand, Ireland does look like a sweet destination. Since they probably already have an office there (double Dutch sandwitch?), it wouldn't even be hard to do.
Dreams aside, probably no company is stupid enough to abandon a 330M big market that has plenty of cash to spend.
Let's for the sake of discussion ignore that it's some other political figurehead implementing this law, would it be acceptable? Is twitter a news outlet by editing or annotating a persons message and is it correct to say these companies are forming a monopoly/cartel on free speech. Does twitter's size and impact on the general populace mean it needs different rules to operate?
I'm much more interested in the stances and opinions of people regarding the status quo around social media and their function to the people and much less interested in the drama that ensues every time something leaves trump's mouth.
900+ comments and counting[0].
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342161
Trump is a smart man. He has trouble handling the coronavirus so the best thing he can do is shift focus.
I think this article adds nothing. In fact, if you take a closer look it just says: 'Trump threatened to close Twitter and Thomas Jarzombek invites Twitter to Berlin.'.
As such Twitter should come up with a clear and transparent policy on this (have they?). It's not specific to Trump.
IMHO, tweets by heads of states should not be subjected to any moderation, and perhaps replies should not be allowed.
Now, what someone tweets in one country may be an offence in another country so it is possible that Twitter might still have to make certain tweets by heads of states unavailable in some other countries.
This is not a simple issue but it will only grow.
Can surf the *.gov for that, or watch tv.
Or ist that the full spectrum dominance across all channels?
MLM?
Those tweets are unidirectional top down broadcasts in practice but they reach many more people than the official government website and they do it almost instantly.
No European country lifted a single finger in the defense of Snowden or Assange when they were in the cross-hairs of the US. No one will do it for twitter, especially when they could just let twitter die and move in to fill the void themselves.